How To Create an Instagram Aesthetic to Enhance Your Feed

Instagram is a highly visual platform that centers around content that catches the eye and holds a viewer’s focus. The best accounts post aesthetic photos and videos that grab scrollers’ attention.

Establishing an Instagram aesthetic — a well-defined style that conveys a brand’s personality — is the key to gripping viewer attention, and a visually appealing Instagram account signals that you take your content seriously. Read on to learn how you can create a strong Instagram aesthetic.

What’s an Instagram Aesthetic?

Think of your Instagram aesthetic as your feed’s overall vibe. You’ll use a combination of factors to create it, such as color choices, photo styles, and the arrangement of your Instagram grid. A cohesive aesthetic gives your profile a polished, recognizable feel that encourages viewers to stick around and explore.

Why Are Instagram Aesthetics Important?

Creating and committing to an aesthetic requires a holistic strategy that addresses each post as an integral part of the whole. Here’s why putting in this work is worth it:

• Make a strong first impression — Your aesthetic is often the first thing people notice about your profile, even if subconsciously. It’s your chance to make a statement and draw in potential followers.
• Build brand recognition — A consistent aesthetic makes your content recognizable, helping you stand out in a sea of images competing for attention.
• Establish trust — Cohesive visuals show that you care about your content’s quality, reassuring viewers of your expertise and professionalism.

Key Elements of an Instagram Aesthetic

Creating a desirable aesthetic is simple — once you get the basics down. Here are the essential elements to consider when building cohesion.

Color and Tone

Your color palette is a major factor in defining your aesthetic. Are you drawn to bright and energetic colors, soft pastels, or moody tones? Will your edits be warm and inviting or cool and minimalist? 

Cohesive Editing Style

Using similar adjustments and Instagram or preset filters across your photos brings a polished look to your feed. For example, you could add a white border to every post so your grid maintains a consistent style.

Grid Layout

While your posts appear one-by-one in feeds, interested scrollers often go from a post to your profile for more content. Engage these viewers while showcasing your brand by crafting a grid layout that’s cohesive and interesting. For example, you can plan related posts in conjunction, using individual images as parts of a whole picture — when viewers look at your grid in entirety, they’ll see a larger picture made up of posts acting as puzzle pieces.

Typography

The right font combinations enhance captions and graphic designs, contributing to a profile’s Instagram aesthetic. Choose a handful of fonts that work well together and add them to your brand kit — a collection of visual assets like logos, graphics, and colors that represent your brand.

Reels and Stories

Unless you elect to retroactively change it, your grid is a somewhat permanent fixture, making it an ideal place to showcase your Instagram aesthetic. But it’s just as important to translate that vibe to your Reels, Stories, and other social media platforms to ensure consistency across your entire online presence.

How To Make Your Instagram Aesthetic: 7 Tips

Bring together all the essential components of an effective Instagram aesthetic following these seven steps, and you’ll develop a style that’s uniquely you.

1. Get to Know Your Audience

Who are you trying to connect with? Think about your ideal follower's interests and preferences. If you have access to real user profiles that represent your target audience, look at the other accounts these individuals follow and engage with. With those examples in mind, craft your aesthetic to appeal to your ideal viewer. 

Say you’re targeting new parents and you share baby product recommendations. You might set each image and video against the same background — like a clean but lived-in kitchen — to create a sense of familiarity while also being aspirational.

2. Determine Your Brand’s Personality

If your desired Instagram identity were a person, think of how you’d describe them. Fun and playful? Elegant and sophisticated? Bold and adventurous? If you’re not sure how to answer these questions yet, consider your ideal follower persona. Imagine who they’d be friends with and the type of energy that would resonate with them.

3. Create a Style Guide

Once you have a sense of your audience and brand personality, decide how you’ll visually represent your brand. Your style guide might include the following components:

• Moodboard — A collection of inspirational images, colors, and textures that embody the atmosphere you’re trying to create
• Color palette — 3–5 brand colors, including your brand’s signature colors and one or two accents
• Editing presets — The go-to preset filters and settings you’ll use across all content to present a unified aesthetic
• Fonts — 2–3 complementary fonts for your captions and graphics
  

4. Create Authentic Content

Your aesthetic should elevate your content without restricting it to rigid criteria. Prioritize material that feels true to your brand, even if it occasionally means bending the rules.

5. Plan Ahead

Map out the arrangement of your grid before adding new posts. Experiment with different layouts, such as checkerboards, rows, and color blocks.

6. Be (Generally) Consistent

Unless there’s a reason to break from your established style, stick to your Instagram aesthetic across posts, Stories, and Reels. Apply your preset filters, colors, and overall style to all your Instagram content to increase professionalism and make your profile instantly recognizable.

7. Stay Open to Change

While consistency is a good guiding principle, it’s okay if you don’t achieve your “perfect” aesthetic on the first try — and even if you do, brands (and audiences) evolve. Avoid frequent drastic changes, but do periodically review your aesthetic to ensure the vibe still feels right.

Make Consistency Easier With Captions

Making Instagram Stories and Reels pop used to take some serious editing chops. With Captions, the AI-powered creative studio, professional videos are at your fingertips.

Captions streamlines the video editing process while helping you stay true to the Instagram aesthetic you’ve worked so hard to create. You’ll be able to craft sleek, accurate captions, plus fine-tune your fonts, colors, and placement to complement your videos’ look and feel. You can create and save different style options so every video matches your brand personality, and it’s easy to export edited videos from Captions directly to Instagram.

Ready to try it out? Discover the power of Captions today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some common questions content creators ask when creating their Instagram aesthetic.

How Do I Curate Content for an Aesthetic Instagram Feed?

Batch-create new content by shooting or editing several pieces simultaneously to stay ahead of the game and ensure a cohesive look. Be selective, only posting images and videos that align with your desired aesthetic — leaving any non-aesthetic B-roll on the cutting-room floor.

Can I Create an Instagram Aesthetic Without a Specific Color Palette?

Definitely! While color is powerful, you can build an aesthetic around other elements. Focus on consistent editing styles, interesting compositions, or a specific mood (like vintage or minimalist) to maintain a consistent feel.

How Do I Make an Aesthetic Instagram Bio?

Keep your Instagram bio short, clearly explaining who you are and what you offer. You can inject some personality with playful language or emojis that match your overall brand tone. Incorporate line breaks to make your bio easy to scan, and include a call-to-action directing viewers to important links like your website or special offers.